Potted film reviews by Gary Anthony Cross

True Romance (1993)

A call girl falls for a client and after a violent confrontation with her pimp they find themselves on the run in Hollywood with a suitcase full of cocaine and mobsters on their tail.

True Romance is very much a nineties zeitgeist movie with an ensemble cast packed with familiar faces, including Christopher Walken and Dennis Hopper – who unsurprisingly share the best scene – Gary Oldman, Samuel L. Jackson, James Gandolfini, Saul Rubinek, Chris Penn, Tom Sizemore and even young up and comer Brad Pitt in a cameo role. But it’s the chemistry between its stars that really makes the film; it’s one of those films where you can’t imagine anyone else playing those parts and I defy any heterosexual man not to fall in love with Patricia Arquette by the end of the film.

Its script is also one of Quentin Tarantino’s early works, essentially a reinvention of 1970’s classic Badlands full of his usual invention and idiosyncrasies, and the whole thing ties together into a hugely enjoyable off-beat thriller that is undoubtedly mainstream director Tony Scott’s best moment.